Icy Blue Descent jlm-4 Read online

  Twenty years ago this island belonged to an artist who lived and worked here for half a century. When he died, his son, who was a drunk and lived in Paris and never visited the place, inherited it. There was no running water, only a cistern that was kept filled with the seasonal rains that washed the islands regularly. A harbor protected from all weather, it was a utopian setting.

  The boat ran up onto the beach in front of two shacks built near the water. I knew my fate was sealed. On many occasions I had escaped death in airplanes, and a few times since. Again, I felt the strangeness, and wondered how it would feel? Would I die bravely? Would it be painful? There was nothing to do but wait.

  Two of the men walked away, leaving the others to tend to me.

  "Untie his legs, Mon," one of the men ordered. "I ain't gonna carry him all the way up to the lighthouse. He's too big."

  They cut the ropes from my legs and hands. I was too weak to give them any trouble. Hardly able to stand, my vision was continuing to clear. A good sign. Asking one of the men for water, he said I was gonna die anyway, so they might as well let me have a drink. He was small and dressed only in shorts, sandals, and a sun-bleached sailcloth hat that had a ragged patch on it that read, 'Albury's sail loft, Man-O-War Cay.' His skin color was that of a chestnut and deeply creased on his face, but smooth and taut as that of a youth on his arms and chest. It was hard to tell his age.

  The water was cool, wet, and tasted as good as any in my life. For that sip, I silently thanked him. They led me into one of the shacks and made me sit on the dirt floor. It was dark inside and several other people were seated around a long, rough-hewn table. Stacked on top was at least fifty kilos of Snowpowder.

  A shadow covered the doorway. "Hey, what's going on?" a voice growled. "Who's the mess on the floor? I thought there weren't going to be any problems on this trip?"

  The voice had a familiar ring, but I was unable to see him as my eyes were still adjusting to the dim light of the shack.

  One of the men said, "The boss caught him snooping around his boat down in Nassau. Say he's a peeper-mon. Want him buried up by the lighthouse."

  "Peeper, huh? I hate peepers. They're always sticking their nose somewhere it can get chopped off. Let me take care of this. It'll give me much pleasure."

  "Okay, Mon. The boss said no mistakes with dis'en, though. He still unhappy about them Cubans washing up down at Land's End."

  Everybody laughed with a nervous cackle.

  The man with the familiar voice came and stood over me. Reaching down, he grabbed me by the hair, pulled my head up, and stuck a pistol barrel in my mouth. If he was going to shoot me here, he would splatter teeth, hair, skin, skull, blood, and brains all over them. At least my epitaph would read, "His end was abrupt."

  He did not shoot. Dropping my head, he turned around and roared a maniacal laugh. My face hit the dirt floor. It smelled of urine, tobacco, and fecal matter. Except for the horrible pounding in my head, I was starting to gain some strength. The water had helped.

  "Get up, peeper. We're going for a little walk." He kicked me in the ribs, causing me to double up into the fetal position. "Get this slime-bucket up."

  Two of the men picked me up. The heat was now oppressive. Turning, I looked at the man who was to kill me. The light from the sun hit his face from above. His eyes and mouth were drawn in lines of endurance and an oddly solemn resignation. It was Dave Billingsly. Sally said he was on Abaco Island. Off to the side stood Will Strange, Karl's oldest boy. My brain took a moment to comprehend what it saw. The relief was such that I almost laughed.

  Dave pushed me roughly toward the path leading up the hill to the old lighthouse on the northeast corner of the island. His hands and arms were thick and powerful, not what you'd expect from his lanky frame.

  Nearly as tall as me, Dave kept in excellent physical shape. A full head of wavy, graying hair and thick eyebrows accented his dark features. In his early fifties, he looked much younger. His eyes were brilliant and dry. He had a long, square face, and his facial muscles knotted and moved abruptly when he spoke, then the movement would vanish, having conveyed no expression.

  "Come on, Will," Dave growled loudly. "Help me carry this piece of garbage up to the pig pens."

  Little Will came over and helped drag me along. My head was starting to pound again, and I felt like throwing up. The sharp coral cut my feet, and they began to bleed as we climbed the hill. Looking down, I realized I wore no shoes. Then I remembered.

  Out of range of the others, Will tried to hold me off the sharp rocks as best he could. He was a young man with a boyish face and perfect white teeth. The last time I saw him he was an innocent child, the delight of a proud father.

  Dave looked at me with a comical grin. "Well, pal, we have to stop meeting like this."

  "You kick awfully hard for an old man."

  "Had to make it look good. We're in with a bad bunch. They are plenty smart and do not trust anyone, especially me. There is no time to go into details, but Will's in a jam and, as a favor to his papa, I'm trying to help. I don't even want to know what you're doing in Johnston's Harbor in the middle of a big dope operation."

  "It's all your fault."

  He looked at me with a quizzical expression.

  "The client you sent to me, the Renoir woman. Her missing sister turned up dead. The trail led to Nassau and that boat lying offshore, the Sun Dog."

  Dave shook his head from side to side. "We might be able to get all of us out of this alive if you think you can swim?"

  "I can swim."

  "You remember Family Beach? Over next to the small reef?" I nodded. "We'll help you get into the water below the lighthouse. Swim around the north end of the point. There's a dinghy there. Get under it and stay until dark, then row up to Lynyard Cay. You remember B.J., the FedEx pilot? Go to his house, it's the green one. Hold up there until I can figure out the rest." His face had the look of a smile, though he was not smiling. It was the quiet look of victory, the look of a man's pride in the price he paid, and that which made it worth paying.

  "I can handle that."

  "It'll be rough rowing until you get past the Bight of Old Robinson. Abeam Bridges Cay, you should be okay. The key to B.J.'s house is in the pelican-shaped flowerpot next to the front door. Good luck, Jay. I've got to shoot you, now, and dig your grave. Hang tough, old son."

  "I'll do my best. And Dave…thanks."

  "Yes…" He looked off across the blue ocean toward Africa as if at some sight that he had studied for years, but which had remained unchanged and unsolved, his face with an odd, questioning look of an uncertain outcome.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Dave and Will helped me down the sharp coral ledge to the water's edge. The lighthouse, where the Johnston's kept their pigs, was on the highest point of the island. The view was spectacular. To the east was the vast Atlantic Ocean. Southward stretched other cays, all the way to the end of Abaco Island at a desolate place called Land's End. To the north, the tiny cays lay like pearls dropped at random by a playful child. Seaward we were surrounded by bluish-purple ocean. Leeward by green, turquoise, and sparkling clear water.

  The mainland of Abaco lay a mile to the west. It is situated roughly in a north-south line a hundred and twenty-five miles in length, and shaped like a dogleg.

  There was no sand beach where I was entering the water, only hard coral washed razor-sharp by millions of years of pounding surf. The wave action carved out a huge cave and fish of every species swam in and out with each surge of the sea.

  We waited until a swell rose slowly up the coral. Then, with careful timing, Dave and Will eased me into the water. The sharp coral sliced deeper cuts into my feet, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  Entering on the ocean side, the only thing between Africa and me was three thousand miles of open water and sharks. It was about a mile swim to round the point, then another mile after crossing the bar to Family Beach.

  Two shots rang out from Dave's magnum and echoed
like claps of thunder. He had just killed me. It was an eerie feeling to know that the bullets, but for a small stroke of luck, would have terminated my life. I hoped Dave could get away with the ruse, as it wouldn't be healthy for him if he were caught faking my death.

  The water felt cool, and the salt stung my cuts. Thank God the sea was calm. If a 'Rage,' the Bahamian word for a heavy storm surge, were running it would be impossible for anyone to swim on the ocean side of Johnston's Harbor. The surf can rise to twenty feet and crashes directly on the sharp coral. This creates an undertow of immense proportions.

  Swimming easy, I wanted to conserve all my strength and tried not to think about sharks. A few weighing over a thousand pounds had been taken in these waters.

  Nearing the point, I started across the bar and noticed the water began to shallow. Looking down, I could see the white sand bottom and the multi-colored coral on the reef. There were fish of all kinds, but this wasn't a snorkeling expedition, it was a swim for my life.

  Pacing myself with slow, easy strokes, I let my muscles stretch and relax. The cuts on my feet no longer burned. Floating for a moment, I rested and looked at the wounds. The salt water washed them clean, and the bleeding stopped. Loose skin around the cuts turned a ghostly white, like a dead person's. Maybe the sharks wouldn't come.

  The water refreshed me. My head was continuing to clear, the pounding easing. The rhythmic movement of the sea, the gentle rising and falling of the swells, and pull of the current, made me think of returning to the womb. Was this the way a drowning person felt? If so, it wouldn't be so horrible.

  Above, the puffball cumulus clouds drifted slowly under a clear, aqua sky. Man-O-War birds soared effortlessly high up in the cirrus. A lone jetliner left a disappearing contrail on its journey eastward.

  Crossing the bar, I turned south toward the small beach. The rhythm of the water stopped, blocked by land. Floating for a while to regain strength, I watched two small barracuda follow me. When I stopped, they would stop. Small fish swam close up under me, like I was a protector for them.

  The barracuda did not worry me. As a general rule, even big ones over six feet, are not known to attack humans except on rare occasions.

  Family Beach is a hundred yards of perfect white sand located on an indentation in the land to the north and just outside the entrance to Johnston's Harbor. Completely isolated from the rest of the harbor, it is surrounded by Casuarina pines, palm trees, and palmetto bushes. The dinghy Dave said would be there was pulled up on the sand and turned upside down. Getting under it would be easy, keeping my sanity until dark would not.

  Staying close to the shore, I scanned carefully along the beach for signs of movement. Hoping it safe, I eased out of the water and tried to crawl so my tracks would not appear made by a human. One gets quite a different perspective when crawling on his belly.

  Easing under the dinghy, I tried to settle in as comfortably as possible. The sand was soft and I sank into its coolness. Sand fleas and flies didn't take long to find me. The struggle began to not let myself feel anything, to think only of what has to be endured to survive. To be discovered now would ensure Dave's death.

  A tense, quiet eagerness of emotion came over me. What I said to myself consciously was: you must do this. For no reason that I can think of a Willie Nelson tune, The Redheaded Stranger, began to play in my head, and shocked me when I found my feet tapping in rhythm on the side of the dinghy.

  After what seemed like eternity, to my horror, I heard talking. Two Bahamian men were close. They came over and sat on the dinghy. They were drinking from a bottle, and I could smell the rum.

  One of them muttered, "Mon, that white fellow, he a bad one. Seemed like he loved to shoot that peeper. You see that smile on his face when he said he blowed his head off with that big gun? Said it popped like a muskmelon. Exploded into a hundred bits."

  "Yeah, I don't like that Mon. He crazy."

  "You see that bone he had in his mouth? Said it was part of the skull of the peeper. Said he loved to suck on the skull bone of the people he killed. Made him feel strong."

  "Yeah, he crazy, Mon."

  "You see that sneer and that wild look in them eyes? That Mon crazy, all right. I be glad when this deal is over with. I want to get back to Marsh Harbor. All these folks is too mean for me. Gimme that bottle."

  "We supposed to go out tonight and pass the powder around up at Treasure Cay. Then we be through and we can get our money. I'll be glad when it's over, too. Let me have that rum."

  They stayed for about an hour getting drunk, replacing their fear with alcohol. One of them stood and urinated up by the bow. The loose sand quickly absorbed the steamy liquid, but the pungent odor of uric acid seeped under the boat, making me gag.

  Maybe it took the booze to give them courage to play with the Snowpowder boys. Most people who get involved with the dope business do not like the violence associated with it. The power of big money and stupidity causes humans to do insane things to their own kind. This is probably the case with Will Strange. A young, reckless kid, who saw a little easy money, but didn't look far enough to see the horror. Now he wanted out, and Dave was paying a dangerous debt to the father to keep him alive and get him away from these vicious people.

  The afternoon heat under the dinghy was horrendous. Sand fleas were eating away at my ankles and arms. It was rough not being able to move while the Bahamians were sitting on top of me. A half-inch of hand-hewn planking was all that separated us. The urge to rise up, grab the rum bottle, and take a big swig was almost unbearable. The bottle began to take on a lifelike quality, taunting, extolling me for cowardliness and weakness. The Bahamians left just before I lost the mind game.

  The rest of the afternoon dragged by with a slowness only the paralyzed can truly know. At least in my case there would be an end to my discomfort, for them there is no end. The afternoon only gets longer.

  The heat began to cool as the sun set. Thinking it safe, I eased from under the dinghy, looking carefully for any sign of movement. Nothing stirred in the coming twilight, and I hoped there was no moon.

  Dragging the small boat into the water took little effort. Once afloat, I quietly pushed it ahead of me, swimming silently. When far enough away from the beach to go unnoticed, I climbed aboard. Unleashing the oars, I started the long pull to B.J.'s house on Lynard Cay.

  The motion of the waves picked up. They came across the bar and rolled heavily into the Bight of Old Robinson. Rowing became a tiring and difficult job.

  The distance across the opening to the lee of Coole Cay was about a mile and a half. Once across, total exhaustion set in on me. Lying in the bottom of the dinghy for rest, my back was in knots, my arms and shoulders felt as if they weighed a ton. My hands were cramped around the oars and would not open. My fingers seemed to belong to someone else and had turned a strange bluish-white.

  Slowly the muscles relaxed and the hands came away from the oar handles. There were two more miles to row, but now it would be easy going, as there were no more openings directly to sea.

  I lay for a while on my back in the bottom of the boat looking up at the sky. The night had weight to it, warm and saturated with ocean air. There was no moon, and the stars were brilliant. As the dinghy turned slowly round and round on its own, the sky seemed to be revolving rather than me. Polaris was visible at its permanent spot with Cassiopeia nearby. All of the familiar constellations appeared, Auriga, Capella, Taurus, Canis Major, Orion, and Pleiades, forming a kaleidoscope of permanence.

  A flood of weariness came in dark waves. For an instant I felt alone and desperate. A gray cotton which was neither fog nor cloud suddenly covered my eyes. A net of moisture seemed to hang in the air. Icy pinpricks stung my face that was neither rain nor sweat or salt spray. They scared me.

  Later I woke and felt rested. The surf pounded on the ocean side of the cays. Waves were breaking at Lynard Cay, throwing showers of spray high into the air like handfuls of diamonds being tossed by an unknown giant. The high s
urf indicated a storm far out in the Atlantic sending big swells rolling onto the outer cays of Abaco.

  B.J.'s house was situated on the highest point of Lynyard Cay. Silhouetted against the night sky, it seemed a long way off. The water around the dinghy was alive with tiny creatures giving off a phosphorus glow. With each stroke of the oar blades, the water seemed as if it would burst into flames, leaving long streams of fire swirling away behind, an eerie, though beautiful sight to a lonely sailor.

  There was a narrow sand beach at the bottom of the knoll below B.J.'s house. Pulling the dinghy up across the dunes, I hid it behind palmetto bushes. Sitting for a moment in the damp sand, leaning against the boat, the stars all of a sudden seemed drained of light so that I could not see the constellations. A weakness washed over me, my heart pounded, and the thought of death frightened me.

  The climb up to the house was made with sheer will power. Only the thought of a bed and endless rest got me there. The key was where Dave promised, and I slipped quietly inside into the darkness.

  The layout of the house was familiar, as I had visited here twice before, staying for a week at a time. It was a plain, comfortable home, designed strong against the hurricane winds. It afforded good ventilation, but with little glass, that kept it dark and cool. There was a single bedroom and, feeling my way along in the dark, I slid into the bed and was asleep in an instant.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The aroma of coffee woke me. Opening my eyes to bright sunlight, a cool breeze blew across the bed. For a moment I could not figure out where I was or why. Then everything came rushing back. Lynn and Rene Renoir, Miami, Bimini, Nassau, the Sun Dog, Dave Billingsly, swimming, the dinghy, and rowing. The smell of coffee came to me, again. My senses must be playing games.

  She walked through the door of the bedroom carrying a tray as if we'd been lovers the night before. A young woman with coal black hair and deep green eyes that sparkled with life. Her skin was tanned and blended with the lose strands of hair that shaded from mahogany to gold in the sunlight. She was short, barely five feet, and her smile showed even, white teeth.